Agree with the judge!!

Holy cow bandido!

errr sounds fun,

Not a word of a lie Kieran. There was more but I wasn’t sure how much space I had to post and was afraid I’d lose what I had done so far.
They made everybody’s life hell for 6 months.

I’m curious did the travelers groups comment on that horse race?

Did they comment on the complete lack of regard for the safety of other road users, the gardai or themselves?, did they comment on any of the documentary’s that Channel 4 have aired which also showed there complete disregard for laws in the UK when they also did illegal horse racing on public roads?

They are not too quick to comment and condemn such illegal activity’s

Barry sure it is part of their culture and we settled folk should let them ignore all the laws of the land :p

Yes, Pavee Point came out straight away and condemned the incident.

“This was a completely unacceptable misuse of a public road and Pavee Point calls on anybody contemplating similar activities to stop and consider the safety of their animals, themselves and other road users”

http://paveepoint.ie/2012/05/sulkies-racing-statement/

That’s gas – Damien and Barry made totally inaccurate statements, quickly disproved, but which fit into the version of truth that the majority of the group here believe and they got a lot of response, almost overwhelming positive (currently Damien 172 thumbs up, 8 down. Barry 122 up, 6 down). Eoin gave the facts and got only 15 replies in total so far, 9 thumbs down.
All of which demonstrates that the story here about thejournal.ie readership being liberal, open, dealing with the facts …. well its just a story.
No wonder ye’ve no problem with a judge demonstrating his inability to be impartial. Impartical in a public role where he accepts a large salary precisely on the premise of impecccable impartiality in all matters!!
Once he agrees with your prejudice, you’ve no problem with his being prejudiced apparently.
lol

Travellers put Gardai and public lives at risk by dangerously using public roads, Pavee point’s response is ‘don’t do it again’

Judge calls “some” travellers neanderthal’s and they call for him to resign!!

Why didn’t they call for the travellers involved in the incident in Cork to be turned over to Gardai, why didn’t they apologise for the actions of the group they represent!!

They’re great at pointing out how bad the general public are at treating the travelling community but have no problem with that same community treating the general public with complete dis regard!!

To me the problem isn’t even troublemakers, or a representative group refusing to accept it. It’s the fact that the representative group chooses, themselves, to define “traveller culture” as a short-sighted excuse for criminality. It’s hardly a surprise that people get the impression that certain anti-social and criminal behaviours are part-and-parcel of being a traveller when the representative body of the travellers themselves say exactly the same thing: that those anti-social and criminal behaviours *are* part and parcel of being a traveller.

So long as those that have set themselves up to speak for the traveller community continue to make that argument and that, therefore, it’s “racist” to criticize or penalize those criminal and anti-social acts whenever (and only whenever) the culprit is a traveller they’re going to create a more and more negative impression of travellers among the general population. Few are buying into that argument but many are taking away the false impression created by travellers themselves that these acts are *inherent* to traveller life and that, therefore, *all* travellers must be like that.

The representative bodies need to knock their heads together and come up with a genuine definition of traveller culture that can be carried forward into the 21st century and abandon this policy of blackening their own entire community’s name in order to get an easier ride for a criminal element.

You must have missed the video of them racing horses up the wrong side of a main road recently. No regard for the law, or other members of the public.

@John Tierny Wooooosh!

at ronan ..the human race !!!

Gombeen, Travellers have consistently been downtrodden and spat upoun by our “open modern society”. Yes a high proportion of them might exhibit distasteful behaviour but newsflash, so did every downtrodden social grouping ever. Those stereotypes about black people being criminals at the start of the civil right era wasn’t the hallucinogenic utterings of whatever was Fox-equivalent in those days. If a sector of society is pissed upoun expect them to not act all nice n’ proper in every other aspect of their day. We have to treat each everyone well before we expect them to have the same level of crime and misbehaviour as the rest of the well treated society.

We’re not so quite in liking their ways when they produce a fair stock of our olympians every four years. This is simply wrong.
He should resign.

Sorry Conor I don’t feel like I’m part of “a well treated society”. I just see myself as an individual responsible for my own actions

@DKeane Individual responsibility leads to individual criminality which is great as you also don’t wouldn’t brand a genetic grouping with a collective criminality. So you would be against what the judge says if you believe in individual responsibilty?

Sorry Conor, but I live in an area with a high volume of the travelling community, and I can assure you, no matter how well or politely you treat some of them…they just continue to abuse the system and the area they are living in.
That’s not to say they are ALL like that, I live beside a settled family and you couldn’t meet nicer, but the vast majority in my area are thugs…rude bullies and have no respect for those around them. And the way they drag their kids around, especially in the school…don’t get me started!
So, feel free to come live in my area and then have your opinion!

@Conor Murphy. Collective criminality is an issue when an ethnic group have such strongly practised traditions such as bare knuckle boxing and settling clan disputes outside of the law by means of violence.

Even if the judge’s comments are true for a majority of male travellers, the law is supposed to be blind. A judge should not allow his judgement to be clouded by his opinion of a particular group.

An individual person is not more guilty of an individual crime by virtue of being born into a particular group. Everyone is entitled to a fair trial.

@ Conor – So you expect us to just live with it and accept the fact that a significant number (while I hope not the majority) of travellers community do commit crime. I don’t buy the cultural ethnicity crap either, ethnically they are the same as us. Its their choice to live with no fixed abode in a caravan which is obviously going to make finding solid work even harder in this economic climate, and also its their “culture” not to finish school which would increase their opportunities. So it is not our fault as a society. They make these choices.

If we leave them be, then we are excluding the traveller community. If we try set them up with housing and make them send their children to school, we are destroying a culture. Its a situation of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The judge should resign but only because he is supposed to be impartial in all cases. What he said could be considered true depending on ones experiences. However it is the task of the travelling community to fix this reputation of theirs. It is not the task of Irish society in general.

Lastly it is highly insulting and incredibly offensive that you have compared the situation of travellers in Ireland today to that of African-Americans in the civil rights era of America. I have never heard of travellers being arrested, beaten up or even killed just because they were travellers. They are given free social housing if they want it, they have free education if they want it, they have recognised organisations fighting for their rights. Go back to the civil rights era and try find any of that for a black man.

@Emma I would be insanely surprised if you had grown up with more travellers than I have. Not to exaggerate the fact, I wasn’t exactly best chums with them or anything but I knew plenty, and only a handful I’d hold a conversation with over a pint. Some have nicked stuff from us, one bet his family up so much he was killed in self defence. Some have died young and others are off their heads half the time (I think.). However the simple fact remains that this vitriol you see on this page does nothing to quell that hatred.

And I wasn’t only talking about politeness to them, for the life of me I can not know why there is not a proper halting site in every middling town in Ireland, thats room, electricity, grazing ground and water for starts. Our town has hundreds of travellers over the past twenty years and there has never been a halting site which leads them to be pushed off every inch of ground they do stop on, which in fairness to the private families whos front of house/farm is used as a halting site I can see why.

I’m not ignoring the fact that a lot of travellers have beaten the life out of their children, been involved in criminality, having poorly maintained sites. I’m just saying that internet wariors spouting hatred is hardly going to do much to help that is there?

@Conor, not that I want to get into a tit-for-tat as to how many travellers we’ve all grown up with. But I have my own reasons for how I feel about travellers. What has happened to my own family goes beyond stealing or anything else…and I reserve my right to delve into that here in public.
As I said, I know plenty that are decent people…but the majority do nothing to help the public view. I’m not trying to incite hatred or anything else, I’m just typing what I see on a daily basis.

@Conor- Will you ask them to build me a free house and provide all those facilities for me too, while I remain unemployed and collect my “entitlements” each week?

Why dont travellers help themselves by acting in a more civil way that is expected by all other people in society.you can say all these comments arent helping travellers but travellers sure is hell arent helping themselves with their actions on a daily basis around the whole country

It’s no surprise Judge Hughes has no respect for Travelers when Travelers don’t respect his court. After the Mullingar riots he was lenient and suspended all sentences only for one of the accused to walk out on the steps of the courthouse and tell the press ‘I run this town’.

We should look at this from the judge’s point of view, litteraly.
when he sits up on his bench and is looking down at all the people in court, he can see that the audience is made up of at least 20% travellers. Yet, according to the last census, there are less than 45,000 travellers in the country. Now 45k out of 4,000,000 people is not reflected well in a district court when 1/5th are travellers.
Or maybe it’s the gardai’s fault. Maybe the travellers are all innocent and being stitched up by the gardai because of their dislike for one another?

It’s quite simple. everyone else has to obey the laws of the land. The travellers refuse to do so. Because of this, the rest of society fears/hates them and certainly do not trust them. Until they obey the laws, they will not be treated with respect. And they are not a ethnic minority.

@James Daly – comment of the week IMO. Fair play.

It amazes me that 1/3 of the people that bothered about thumbs disagreed with you. I bet the same bunch would get gobby about international views of the Irish.

Has anyone actually found out if the person the judge was referring to was actually a traveller? If he was a traveller, is the judge wrong? If he wasn’t a traveller, then its the rest of normal civilised society that should be complaining for being compared with travellers.

Conor I’m a newbie round these parts, but so far I don’t think the IQ quotient is that high. On these boards the more thumbs down you get, the more you are rattling them.

I too live in an area of the country where there is a high percentage of travellers and I call BS on what Emma said. She bases her opinion on a whole culture based on personal experience. So instead of hating the people who she had dealings with, she hates an entire community.

That is BNP thinking right there.

@Mary…not at all… Yes i’ve had a bad experience and as I said, i’m not getting in to it here. But it was in the national media some years ago and we had a family loss out of it. So I think my personal bias may be slightly warranted to the two traveller families involved.
But you have mis-read my comments, i’m not focusing on the WHOLE travelling community and i’ve made that perfectly clear in both points. Please re-read my comments.

you agree with someone being judged solely on the basis of their family background? Your statement is sinister, and shows how mob rule which is what you are advocating has no place in a sophisticated society.

No wonder this country is a banana republic.

Mary, please stop putting words in my mouth…I am not now or have I ever been part of any mob mentality.
Now, as I said, I have my reasons, and if you wish to find out what these reasons are then contact me directly.
Again…I am not against ALL travellers. I have respect for some of their traditions and their values, but I don’t agree with others. Just like everyone else in this country.
Now, i’m trying to get my points across with resorting to name-calling or generalising like you have resorted to. Please do not assume to know me or how I think. And i’m glad you haven’t had any issues involving members of the travelling community and I hope it keeps rosey for you.
Now, please do not continue to slander me and again, should you wish to understand my situation, please feel free to contact me directly

Here Emma, you’ve had a personal tragedy and that will of course affect your view of those you know. And in fairness your comments have been more level headed than a lot here with more reason not to be. I hold no rose tinted vision of travellers, I barely have known one I’d share a pint with and didn’t even particularly like him, he was just grand, (gone now).

All I’m saying that this traveller vs society stuff happens again and again and again and the only way its going to stop is if one side starts treating the other side better as a catalyst for change. And because of their culture, their isolation and ostracization, and the way they feel we view them, that first movement will never be the Travellers. It has to be settled society.

@Mary – Aren’t you basically doing what you are accusing others of? Because of your opinion of the comments on here you are declaring our country a banana republic. Is that not tarring everyone with the same brush because of the opinion of a few?

Secondly, do you even know what a banana republic is?

And lastly, you could have chosen to insult any of the other commenters on this topic, but you most likely chose Emma’s comment because it was popular and spoke from personal experience. This leads me to believe you are probably just another troll.

Connor

Theses people milk the “political correctness” this society lives by unfortunately.
In Ireland we go from one extreme to another, we would all admit that conditions have vastly improved for travellers in this county over the years and i was all for this, however what had happened ?
They are integrated in to communities and become the majority in that town or village, settled people who put there home on the Market in that town or village are intimidated in to selling to a traveler who “offers a fair price”.
The family selling the house decline the offer because they can’t afford to sell it at the price offered by the traveller

Guess what Connor

They burn the Family home that was for sale to the ground !

Buy a new set of glasses because you obviously can’t see past your arse in those,
judging by that photo or did your mammy go to pixie photo with you and have it taken ?

I’ll probably get tor to pieces but here goes.I have personally never had a good experience dealing with travellers or to a lesser extent, with Roma gypsies.Does that make me a racist or a bigot because my only personal experience with such people has been negative?I will never be ignorant enough to say ALL travellers/Roma are anti-social, thieving beggars but in my experience, I have no opposite viewpoint.I understand that there are law abiding, working travellers but I have personally never encountered them in my own working or personal life.I have also personally never met a person from the Roma community in Dublin or Ireland or mainland Europe that has actually worked for a living in a shop or an office etc, the only time I have encountered them is when they are asking me for money, sin begging.I cannot change my previous experiences ie. being personally robbed by 2 travellers as a kid, having items from my van stolen including the side mirrors (more than once!), being on buses where totally inappropriate things have happened on front of children and the elderly (settled people do the same.. I know!) and in terms of the Roma, my friend being surrounded and having his phone robbed and also being constantly badgered for money while having a drink in Temple bar.Once again, I will never say ALL when speaking about travellers or Romani people but ALL my personal experiences have been negative, and my world view like all of us, is based on previous experiences.

# tor = torn
# sin begging = as in begging

Because it will inflame society.
Originally I’m from a rural background, I know many people for rural Ireland many have been the victims of crime, most if not all insist that the people who robbed their property etc were ‘travellers’. Could this be true? Where is the evidence, if it is there it needs to be addressed both by the settled community and by Those who claim to represent travellers. If the evidence is clear, all the ethnic discrimination bs is void. We need to get on with it. Everybody deserves respect not everybody gets it. Everybody deserves justice not everybody gets justice either.

Brilliant

He could have called it like it is in a less problematic way though couldn’t he?

He could have just stated it as fact that he sees a disproportionate amount of travelers in front of him charged/convicted of particular crimes and left it at that. Any push against him then is not based on the language of prejudice, just observation.

Take a look at the story on the Indo Graham. Publican in Carlow gets the daylights beaten out of him for trying to keep an orderly house. I used do a bit of work for publicans. Regularly got shaken down for compo under equality legislation. They can no longer choose who they serve. A joke.

If that were the case then they wouldn’t have ended up in court, would they?

Fair comment G.

Ahh yes…that loong queue of employers telling the half million already on the queue to step aside because there are Travellers he wishes to interview.

none so blind…

They’re not considered for a lot of jobs because they don’t want to work! They want to make as much as they can for as little work as possible.

If they wanted a job, they would finish their education to gain the skills required for living in a civilized country and to earn a living like the majority of us living here!

er… reds…its not long since Travellers attempting to get their kids into ‘civilised’ Irish schools resulted in the ‘civilised’ settled parents pulling their kids out and closing the school..

The bigotry on display here, and the general ignorance of the majority of comments, indicates the level of education prevalent in ‘civilised’ Ireland.

I can smell the thumbs-down adrenalin burning from here.

Name one school that closed because settled people took their kids out!

No. I won’t..the problem was sorted out..I’m not going to kick embers. Unless you are extremely young it was well within your living memory. It was a small rural school. The parents, like most Irish people, were paranoid of any contamination.
We project the same cead mile failte to refugees, despite our history of exporting refugees and economic emigrants. Hypocrisy on stilts. We’re so bigoted we even resent hearing Irish spoken, mainly because we have internalised the colonial self-hatred that once required a stationed garrison to keep us compliant. Nowadays we will kiss royal arses for the prospects of a few indusrialised hospitality shillings. We lost our own tongue, and with it a culture, never really penetrated the program that came with the imposed linguistic framework. The greasy till remains thee measure of all things in this franchise of the ‘nation of grocers’.

Full of poo poo!

What was the school Damien? Sorry?? Ohhhh….. it doesn’t exist. Like most of the other Walter Mitty rubbish you are coming out with. Keep up the fantasies, good imaginations are to be nurtured in early development.

Ronan, you are living proof that literacy alone will never eradicate ignorance.
Whats your tribe?
Combat 18?

emma..there are horses abused and abandoned all over the country..by settled(sometimes even farmers)people. Don’t use a single instance to justify generalised bigotry.
What about the invisible cruelty of the hidden throwbacks in the ‘thorougbred’ endogenetic breeding programs?
Oh shh..thats the gentle and genteel gentry.

emma, can you put up some stories about mass murderers too? none of them are Travellers but sure the way this is going, you can just say they are anyway :)

‘They keep isolating themselves…’

That sums up the double-think projection throughout these comments. So Rebecca…they are not isolated by the settled society, and never were?

Bigotry cubed. Its nothing but the same thing you’ll hear from Orange bigots about taigs. Read yourselves and compare.

Holy Cr*p you’re an angry person.

Nope..not in the least..quite at ease. But weary of bigotry and sloppy thinking, especially when it takes falsified moral high-ground.

There is makings of several swollen lynch-mobs in the current commentary.

Actually, Rebecca..thats a nice example of the rampant projection..you’ve already stated that YOU are infuriated…and then immediatly accuse me of your own problem.

Please do think. but loose the fury, if you’re replying..I am trying to be constructive.

@Damien – Where exactly has she said anything that could be construed bigotry? As far as I can tell from the majority of comments here, she is only stating the general consensus. It is getting harder and harder to sympathise with the travelling community.

And deny it all you like, the travelling community is very isolationist. Generally they are only allowed marry their own, the children barely get through school which prevents integration with general society,they tend to only work with their own and socialise with their own, and lastly they only ever have themselves as neighbours.

Nothing said in these comments has even come remotely close to the hatred the OO spouts on a regular basis. You however have no problem with insulting a persons character just because she stated her opinion. Maybe you should think a bit more before posting a reply.

My eternal gratitude King Olaf. You sir are a Gentleman. The other fella however I fear is a sad sad troll man.

@ Rebecca – You’re probably right. He doesn’t seem to respond to anything in a constructive manner and attacks people for holding views different to his own.

Yes, gentlemen don’t ruffle ladies’ feathers..but then I’m so savage I prefer women to ladies.
And Olaf, its not about sympathy, its about justice, and the history of state as well as social discrimination that has created this cumulative problem.

@Damien – Enlighten me please, justice for what exactly?? I agree the judge shouldn’t have said what he did. He should receive some sort of punishment for breaking impartiality. However what he said could be true based on his experience.

Thanks, Olaf..you summed it up.

Now, nice and slowly…just how much experience do you think our judiciary have of Travellers??

Think about it. Do they generally meet them in the Kings Inns?Trinners?At the golf course?At their exclusive clubs?
Do they ever take a tour of their sites and go along to explain their backgrounds and accumulated generational problems from years of discrimination, poverty and exclusion when they are confronted with burocratic ignorance(which ALL of us not on the fast track experience regularly)?I’ve met some bad bastards in the Travellers, real Tarantino cellar-candidates..but believe me, I’ve met worse, and more of them(though usually better disguised) in the settled community. His ONLY experience is of their criminality.
The judge has proved his judgement is impaired by his limited experience, and inability to transcend it. He has deepened divisions, and as such probably increased alienation that will lead to further criminality which will reinforce the vicious cycle..which will amuse the collective bigots venting their spleen and ignorance in the name of a spurious law-respecting ‘civility’.

rebecca, i’m an Irish Traveller and i don’t think i’m above the law. i am also involved in my community and isolating myself wouldn’t be a choice of mine at any time. no one is asking you to sympathise with us so don’t be too hard on yourself. i resent you classing all Travellers the same, in the same way i would resent another person classing all Irish people as the same for fear i would ever be put into the same catagory as those who are expressing extreme racism and bigotry on this topic.also, you need to know, i do not control any member of society, Traveller or settled, nor am i responsible for their actions. i abide by the law as do 99% of the Traveller community. i think your comments and the majority of other racist comments on this thread are based on ignorance, so i do sympathise with you and them and wish you luck in trying to see beyond the mist

Margaret don’t mean to generalise. You’re right that I did in a way and I’m sorry for offence caused to you.. But I have to disagree with your notion of 99% of travellers abide by the law. I disagree and that’s it. I’m entitled to disagree. And I’m not ignorant. I pride myself on my knowledge.

That link says it all.
Wish I could “unsee” it though.

David..get out more..reality is bigger than your barstool.

I’ll try get out more when im back from Chicago in a couple days. might even give this self righteousness PC thing a go, god knows hiding from the truth is the way to progress and succeed in life.

well your chavvy has the flat cap thing going on and all that……………..

eh?

Nice to see a well thought out response from the other side of the debate.

I think that the problem for the travelling community is that they don’t interact with the settled community in an everyday way. We all interact with Polish and Nigerians everyday nearly. Lots of us work with them. This has helped people see that they are not all foreigners trying to steal jobs or some other crap. They came to Ireland a lot worse off than most travellers are. A lot of them could read, write or in some cases even speak English. However, in my experience they always made an effort to be interested in our culture and work hard to make a good name for themselves.

If your figure is correct, the travelling community make up just 1.9% of the population of ireland. Yet members of the community are mentioned many times in the media for criminal acts or fighting between families. The population of Polish in Ireland is just under 123,000…thats just over 5%. I rarely see news pieces about them breaking the law in the media.

run Forrest run……..

very true mike.

well said martin. ignorance is at the root of racism and there’s a lot on here who really need to go educate themselves

@lennon stop jumping the stupid queue, I haven’t dealt with stupid no. 666 Jack Daniels yet. Stupid slaying is turning into a full time round here.

go back and take the child of HSE care and wait your turn.

Obviously, from the thumbs down you’re getting …what ‘..allows him pontificate with supreme ignorance..’ is the ocean of general ignorance and bigotry in the host society.

The dissimilarity, I suppose, is that the leaders of the Irish community in Ireland were saying ‘It’s not fair to say Irish people are all terrorist bombers– it’s simply untrue and racist to suggest otherwise” rather than “Blowing stuff up with bombs is an inherent part of Irish culture, you’re being terribly racist by saying we shouldn’t be allowed to”.

Sorry, I meant “in England” there…

I think here you’ve hit on the crux of the debate.

Being from a distinct culture is an identifier for certain things, yes. For example, the suicide rates among the travelling community is disproportionally high. The idea that being from a distinct group puts you in a different category in law though is pretty much playing a card though.

Do you have a battery bank or are you connected to the mains, Martin?

Well said, Martin…Donal nice knee-jerk half-witicism.

I generally don’t approach groups of people that are acting in an aggressive manner. Maybe one day when I feel safe around them I will engage them in conversation.

Yes, all travellers congregate in groups acting aggressively. Just like all Jews are stingy, all blacks live in trees and all Chinese people are good at maths. Ffs, do people even read what they write?

I believe it all Asian people are good at maths ;)

Martin this is an interesting point you make, in so far as the reality is that largely travellers isolate themselves, they marry into their own genetically small community, and very much disapprove of fellow travellers marrying outside their own ethnic group, with serious consequences. They resent interference from society, yet totally rely on the same society for welfare, healthcare etc. let’s be fair to all. Let’s do this with a clear understanding of what ‘fair’ means.

Felix, except Burmese people, they are absolute rubbish at maths, couldn’t add 2+2. Japanese people are bloody brilliant though…

See my post above RG. Could you explain to me if that post is racist, or is it merely a description of actual events?
Could you also explain how we were supposed to deal with it constructively?
Their landlord was afraid of them, the Gardai wouldn’t touch them. The only reason they eventually moved out was because they had tampered with the gas supply , Bord Gais came out and took the whole unit away.

See my post above RG. Could you explain to me if that post is racist, or is it merely a description of actual events?
Could you also explain how we were supposed to deal with it constructively?
Their landlord was afraid of them, the Gardai wouldn’t touch them. The only reason they eventually moved out was because they were cold. They had tampered with the gas supply , Bord Gais came out and took the whole unit away.

Its racist because you judge them all collectively by your personal experience.
My experience with them is generally better. If I were to slam every county in Ireland I got a beating in for no good reason I would be maligning thousands of decent people collectively for individual muggings. The Irish are generally clannish and violent…but its usually expressed and directed through healthy outlets like the GAA.
I often drink and socialise with Travellers. They have their thugs, but no more than the settled population. If every ‘ordinary’ crime was flagged as ‘another settled’ murder/stabbling/shooting etc. you might notice the difference.
Its a human tendency to see another’s stupidity, ignorance and criminality before our own.

Perhaps you could explain where exactly I said “all”, or generalised in anyway? I gave my experience of one crowd of travellers. I knew they were travellers when the moved in as they knocked on my door three times in the first week selling perfume, rugs and asking would I be interested in buying milk. I was polite in all my dealings with them. I didn’t care about them at all for the first couple of months and treated them no differently than anyone else. It was when I noticed horses, slashed tyres and witnessed them threaten a shop assistant up the road that my concerns arose. Not because they are travellers, because I wouldn’t really like anyone that behaves like that living two doors from me.
My only other experiences of travellers was speaking to a few in the pub one night (until about 10 got into a fight and were thrown out), buying a few DVDs of them (no problem there ) and 3 of my neighbours houses being robbed. One was a man in his 60′s who got a clatter as he came home as it happened.
If I was to slam every county I ever got a beating in…. I wouldn’t be slamming any!
Maybe take a look at yourself.

You must have really antagonised a lot of people in a lot of different counties to deserve all those beatings.

That last comment was for Damien.

I antagonise people all the time…just look at the thumb ratio..lots of allergy to rational argument…I got a few attempts that backfired too.

But not that many hidings…more, probably, as a teenager in the native Dublin than anywhere else..usually gangs ambushing..never once from Travellers…yet.
Got run out of a town in Oz for defending an Abo..got arrested in Bloomfontein for asking was it a police state…which proved it was.
Better men than me have taken bigger hits. But thats all off topic. Stick to the issue.

Abo is derogatory term Damien.
Again take a look at yourself before criticising others.

Tell you what, bandido..you gather your Traveller, African, Aborinal and assorted friends…and we’ll ask whose comments on this thread are most offensive…I knew plenty of them who referred to themslevs using the term, or blackfellah..they have more serious reasons to be taking offense at than to be bothered by it.

They’d laugh at your suggestion.

They did indeed come out and condemn it. I don’t remember reading a statement from them, but I do remember hearing a spokesman for the organisation with a statement, I think on newstalk. In which he said that Pavee point condemn the actions of that small number racing on the road and endangering the lives of the animals and other road users.

He did slip up however and basically said they were wrong to be caught racing on the road. When the presenter challenged him on that, he automatically went to the blame game and said it was the settled community not respecting their traditions essentially and that local government had not provided a racing area for them.

A telling couple of questions. Travellers are easy meat for the prosecution service here. Men in suits, or casino bankers and dodgy developers are actually fond of the court services in this country and in the UK. Apparently THEIR shenanigans can be wiped clean by the bankruptcy laws and their moral and actual culpability in the destruction of the Irish economy can be glossed over or put on the long finger.

I bet your tune would change if they robbed all the tools out of your van then after following them to a halting site, called the cops and was told they won’t go in there. Then to rub salt into the wound, go up to a market, see said tools and proceed to call the cops once more only to be told they can’t do anything.

er..felix…surely your beef here is with the cops??
We get brutal criminal behaviour every hour of every day and every night…but when it originates in our own community its NEVER identified as the trogoldite settled Irish….spot the difference….that old chap, is yer racist bigotry.

100 Irish men can beat their wives and its just that individual(unless he’s from Limerick)but if one Traveller causes trouble..hoooray..there ya go..proof proof nutting but the prooof..they’re ALL savage.

Ehhh no? They robbed my stuff and the cops wouldn’t go in because of fear I suspect. So I don’t blame the cops because I can’t see them not calling to where I live if it’s full of stolen property. I think the finest moment I’ve ever seen of a traveller is when one of them got sick on a baby on the luas and didn’t even apologise.

The essence of your logic, felix, is that they are all vomiting on every infant they see..try thinking for a minute.

If someone from your street(or family even) murders my cousin can I hang you and the rest of your village?

That is your logic.
Do think..its good for ya..in the end.
Painful at first, like any exercise, if you’re not used to it.

He was probably feeding the baby, like birds do when they regurgitate. Cute.

you’re right Rob, ignorant being the word, and farcical

@ Damien – Why would he blame the cops? They didn’t steal his tools. They just couldn’t do anything about it.

Look here is how it works. You will notice that most of the comments on this article speak of negative views and opinions based on experience in dealing with the travelling community. Generally speaking I would think that the vast majority of the Journal’s commenters are fairly liberal, with progressive minds and for the most part are all for the protection of minorities and the vulnerable in society. Anybody who I have ever seen troll the regular articles about gay rights, women’s rights or immigrants has gotten massive amounts of red thumbs.

Yet whenever there is an article about incidents involving travellers or another protest by pavee point, anybody who tries to defend the members of the travelling community mentioned in it are the ones who get the most negative votes. I’d wager that most people commenting on this have had experiences with the travelling community, and that most them have not had good ones.

I’ll even give you my own example. I used to work in hospitality and I have met a fair amount of travellers in my time then. In all that time, I can only think of one couple of traveller lads who came into the bar, had lunch and a few pints and went off again. The rest of my experiences involve being threaten, spat on, intimidated, attacked, robbed, challenged to a fight in stead of paying for their bill, or mugging other customers. When you first start working in a bar, one of the first things you are taught to watch out for and be wary of are members of the travelling community.

At the end of day when you have so many negative experiences and those around you who you associate with do to, you cannot help but come to a general consensus about the issue. I actually don’t like thinking about a community in this way. It goes against the ideals that I like to live my life by, but I can’t help the way my experiences have shaped my views. Only the travelling community can change that.

@Ronan…. nearly pissed myself!

@King Olaf
No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish….oh and especially no Travellers.
I was just talking to a Traveller neighbour, same age as my own eldest. He’s half way through studying at third level, and planning to emigrate to finish his course…just sick of the civilised bigotry in this smug little country where cops, judiciary, and the silent middle-class respectable Mrs Buckets behind their squinting windows judge him before he opens his mouth. The same respectable civilised ladies and gintlemen who blind-eyed serial child abuse for generations, and now blind-eye white collar criminals deporting their own children..so they can ‘maintain their standards’.
Maybe I’m just lucky, I was taught from early that you don’t judge people by their background. Its an attitude that has served me well. Never forget that fascists, from franco’s Spain, to Adolf’s civilised, educated Teutons, were usually the majority in their societies, and that Gypsies were among their earliest targets.

@Damien – As I said to someone who posted one of the first comments of this. Our corner of the world is a different place now to the days of no dogs, no blacks, no Irish. It is a massive exaggeration to suggest they are treated in such a way. I know in bars there is a particular wariness of travellers and serving them, but you can’t refuse them without an organisation like PP getting on your case. It is a completely different world now to the examples you have given.

Sorry, your majesty…but just check the vitriol dripping from the knuckle-draggers, unlike yourself, unaware of the complexity of the issue.
Thats like saying because Obama is figureheading Uncle Sam the civil rights movement can disband..if only.

Culture always lags law. The organised forces of regression ensure that.
I’d reckon there is considerable input from BNP, and further afield, on this thread.
If you doubt it, you haven’t studied them. Not that they would ever be short of useful local idiots to impliment their programs. They are to be found everywhere. And spreading..they always do in times of economic necessity when the Right mobilises for its own security of perpetuity.
Sow havoc remains their motto. From Cheyney’s boardrooms to the gutter.

I cannot see why action could be taken against the Judge outside Court. The man just stated a fact of life !

Racism on this forum today is astounding. Whether or not you like travellers or not, you cannot have a judge who makes assumptions about an individual based on his ethnicity. What kind of justice is that. Disgraceful.

Kevin, since when did travellers become a race

Nothing new there.
I spent a couple of years in South Africa under the apartheid regime(having already worked around Britain with lads from all over the globe)before moving to Australia for a year. The white Aussies were far more bigoted than the white South Africans, much to my amazement. They had the same entrenched vicious hatred for Aboriges as most Irish have for Travellers. Its handed down from parents to kids, the ignorance deepening with each generation as the gap widens.
I think its a residual colonial guilt becuase these people represent the dispossessed Irish our anglified system is built on. Most of them have more Irish(often of the old Gaelic chieftains like McCarthy)names than their begrudging despisers, who like meself, despite plenty of Gaelic ancestry, take their names from later waves. Its just the old tuppence-ha’penny looking down on tuppence syndrome. Now watch this grab the outraged dumb-thumbsdowners.

What specific race do travellers belong to?

Kevin, there is only one race..its the human one.
But racism is a reality; its the illusion that superficial difference is an indicator of racial other. The racism is in the ignorant eye of the racist. To judge anyone by their origins is bigotry, often manifesting in racial terms. As such it needs addressing on grounds of race and ethnicity. The judge expressed just this ignorant bigotry. If he was less ignorant he might realise Neanderthals had equal(if not greater) cranial capacity to the Cro-Magnon’s believed to have exterminated them. There is also evidence of interbreeding, so the Neanderthals were not a seperate species from modern hominid/humans.
I hope that helps.

The Court doesn’t provide any protection to any Judge in respect of a breach of the law. However I believe his comments were in respect of Travellers who have come before him that the remark was made and for those who have to visit these Halls of Justice it is interesting to note the very high proportion of attendees that come from this grouping.
This rubbish about a different ethnic make up to the rest of us is scientific nonsense and only provides a cover or excuse for behaviours unacceptable in the wider community. Pavee Point have become like too many NGO ‘s. Once they started taking the States shilling they have become too precious for their own good.

David Barrett: Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by heritable phenotypic characteristics, geographic ancestry, physical appearance, ethnicity, and social status.

Kevin — I think your definition of a race might just as easily apply to people from the Aran Islands.

From what I have seen of your comments so far….are you sure it was because of a stereotype you subject to such bigotry?

well done for perpetuating the thick paddy image. Take your bigotry elsewhere.

Anyone who dismisses the racism that Irish people went through for decades in the UK to make a cheap jibe is showing where their level of intelligence is at.

you get me?

are you Elaine in disguise Mary?

@Mary – Oh I wasn’t dismissing the bigotry the Irish had to go through in the UK for decades. I was dismissing the bigotry YOU apparently went through.

Can you really not think of any reason other than the fact you are Irish why people might give you a hard time?

Here is a hint…check out the responses to most of your comments and maybe you will see why people treated you the way they did in the UK. I’m sure you did more for perpetuating the thick paddy image than I ever could have.

@lennon

go way and get your chavvy out of HSE care.

It’s not racism.

These are all paths to the dark side

Correction…..promoted

Can’t be arsed reading all the comments at this stage there are two many but what exactly are your views on travellers?

Says the man who just described somebody as an Abo!!

now you’re scraping, bandido..Abo is just short for aboriginal..meaning original native inhabitant…you’re going to take offense on behalf of them for that??
Bit desperate?

Can you give us the name of that school that closed or are you spoofing?

nope..no need to spoof..it got sorted. I’m not, unlike quite a few, here to stir shit.

Ah gwan gwan, gwan, what was the schools name, give us a hint, make up somewhere even….

tell you what Ronan…give us the name of YOUR kindergaten(doubt you even graduated it).
Then we can warn intelligent parents what to avoid.

This is to do with you fabricating rubbish about an imaginary school closing down because fictitious people withdrew their children due to alleged travelling children enrolling there. That’s's all it’s about, nothing else but your lies, you absolute dope.

Dig up kid…